1) There is a definitive story of Wolverine’s life and we are digesting portions of it over time, similar to the 300 issues of ‘Cerebus’ or the 100 issues of ‘100 Bullets’. In a sense this is especially true for Wolverine, if you perceive the story from the future, instead of the present (or worse, the past).

2) Each chapter of Wolverine’s story is being told independent of all the others in a series of tales that will never end. Hence there is no closure, there is no happy ending. There is only the next chapter to be told, possibly contradicting what came before. Think Spider-Man’s clone saga and the editorial rationale for Brand New Day.

3) An even more cynical view is that we are merely reading independent story after independent story because the publishing company needs to make money, e.g. ‘Origin’ was told because Marvel Comics bordered on bankruptcy, not because that was his actual origin.

Depending upon your perspective, each of the viewpoints in our lengthy discussion is easily understandable.

DiG…

WOW…this has become a riveting discussion with such depth of civilly written debate on both sides of the coin,and such conjecture of character, background, and possibilities. I would like to see this continue.

I couldn’t agree more, Pamela. This is why this community is such a wonderful place to frequent.

Is it time to build the character back up and have him atone for everything that he just realized he did? Yes.

I agree with that, Comusiv. While it’s been interesting to see the character’s darker side, as as stated above I feel it contrasts against the lighter side nicely… eventually it will be time to move forward. I believe most fans want to see Wolverine overcome his personal demons and move back towards the honorable man he was perceived to be in earlier stories.

We’ll see if that comes to pass in the coming years.

I’ll start by saying I know ignoring it doesn’t mean it’s any less canon, I leave that to other writers in Marvel, I’m just saying I dislike it. That aside, I’m not 100% sure why.

First let me apologize as I didn’t mean to suggest that you were taking an “ignorance is bliss” stance. Even if you didn’t read that into it, I feel it needs to be said to avoid any possible intention confusion.

I suppose what I was trying to do is to show that there is some logical/historical backing for Daniel Way’s storylines, and to present an alternate perspective to perhaps ease the minds of any and all who have difficulty seeing Logan in that role.

That said, I still believe it’s perfectly within your rights and understandable to not be taken with the particular direction. Because yes, Logan has been written doing fairly brutal things prior to Daniel Way, but that doesn’t necessarily change the fact that you don’t care for it. Nor does it change the stark contrast between what we’re seeing from Wolverine now, and what we saw from him in earlier stories.

As for not being sure why you dislike it, well there are likely reasons, but it’s hardly said that every reason has be logical or understood. We know that Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben fought in a war, but I’d likely be upset if it was written that he gunned down enemies without mercy. The fact of the matter is of course he did, it was war, but that doesn’t mean it’s something I would want to know or see written.

The point being that not every opinion needs to be based on cold logic, sometimes going with your heart is just as valid.

In my honest opinion, I don’t think Way is revealing some past but instead he’s creating a new one and therefore disrespecting the character’s chronology.

That’s an interesting perspective, DF. And technically, it’s true. He is creating a new past on some level. To delve into semantics for a moment that’s technically true of all writers. The history of Wolverine that we know today, or the one that we knew ten years ago is vastly different from how the character was originally intended.

One only needs to recall when he was intended to be a mutated Wolverine or some such creature. Each writer adds their own perspective and their own voice to a character’s history, and sometimes that doesn’t jive with what we know of the character, or what the creators intended.

This is both the blessing and the curse of the comic medium. Any character can be retooled at any time by any future writer to be both great or terrible.

“It’s both a strong sentiment and a cowards reasoning. As more noble heroes find a way to do both without murdering.”

I’m sorry but while the rest of you post is very good this statment is provable BS.

I’m afraid I’m at fault here, TobyS. I misworded my statement. It wasn’t that I was calling Wolverine a coward, or that I was saying that one character’s view is more noble than another’s (in fact, if I could rewrite the above statement I’d have said “altruistic” instead of “noble”). What I was suggesting is that in certain situations he uses that viewpoint as an excuse.

At any given time he can (not that he always does) attack anyone, kill them, and then say “It was for your own good, I did it so you didn’t have to”. As much as he may mean it most of the time, part of it is that deep down he wants an excuse to kill on occasion. It’s an easy way to explain away a darker part of his nature that he may not want to admit to.

As for the second part of the statement: “As more noble heroes find a way to do both without murdering”. What I was suggesting is that the superheroes with more traditional “good guy” character archtypes generally try and keep both the innocent parties and the villains alive in any given scenario.

Spider-Man knows that when he puts the Green Goblin in jail he’s simply going to get out and kill more people, likely even Peter Parker’s own friends and family. Yet he makes a conscious effort to keep him (and all the villains he faces) alive.

In polite society there’s procedure, the police, the good guy archtype-based superheroes, they believe even the villains have a right to life. Now I don’t necessarily think that perspective is right or wrong, it’s character specific. But those characters still go to great lengths more often than not at even greater personal cost to follow the procedures of said society.

I suppose what I’m getting at is that Wolverine is a logical character. He knows that when he kills an enemy, they probably won’t come back, and then they can’t hurt anyone else. And that if he’s the one to kill them, no one else is forced to suffer that on their conscience.

Whereas other less logical heroes play by a very strict set of moral guidelines that say you can’t kill, only capture. They know that it’s a temporary measure and the villains will get free, and they will hurt more people. Yet they stick to this system because of their own moral code. Whether that moral code is right or not doesn’t really matter to the conversation at hand.

What a rousing discussion. :)

– Ace

When Wolverine killed the guard in the Savage Land, everybody was shocked. I mean, superheroes don’t kill! It was awesome! Here is a real frickin’ soldier showing these naive superheroes what you really have to do in war.

And then the Hellfire club sequence cemented Wolverine as the coolest hero we had ever seen. He didn’t just talk the talk, he walked the walk.

But the entire Dark Phoenix debacle and controversy brought this whole killing thing to the fore. And Shooter made these papal proclamations.

Looking back some 25 years later, it really does seem ridiculous.

I always read it as he enjoys the thrill of combat and chase etc like a hunter or a sportsperson would.

If he grinned before I fight that is how I would take it.

Interesting factoid about the “he didnt kill the guards” but come on….. really….. he did. Any mention later otherwise was clearly ass-covering politically motivated bullshit from the higher ups at marvel.

And I think there is a difference even if he enjoys figthing that doenst make him like Deadpool:

“Yay, Fighty time, fighty time, blood, blood, blood.”

When he says that I will wholeheartdly agree with you.

I however fully except that you are more well read then me on wolvie so youre oppinions are inherently more valid for the most parts.

The great thing about Wolverine is that he has all the makings of the perfect killer, but he resents it. In fact, in Larry Hama run he says that himself, several times over. He`s not a murderer, merely a protector and sometimes a vigilante – in his own way admittedly, but he does not slaughter and especially not indiscriminately! He is indeed a fallen samurai, that`s how he was written initially, that is at the heart of the character and to throw all that out the window and pretend you can ‘reinvent’ him as a darker bloodier homicidal maniac just because we`re talking about his past, is a, I`m sorry to say, a very cheap move.

I feel that all of this has nothing to do with the desire to bring about new and interesting takes on the character and everything with the desire to cash in…because Marvel knows we all love Wolverine, but they seem to have forgotten what drew us to the character in the first place…

I mentioned this earlier, but while Wolverine did kill the guard in the Savage Land and the guards at the Hellfire Club, Jim Shooter as Editor-in-Chief actually proclaimed that Wolverine had not killed anyone. If he had, he would have to be put on trial and sent to jail.

That is why several Hellfire Club guards returned later (Cole was one), and Shooter even stated that if he had to, he would show the Savage Land guard still alive.

This is not to say he didn’t kill later (or earlier chronoglogically), but at the time, the official party line was that Wolverine had not killed as Wolverine.

I think the distinction made at the time was that it was morally acceptable to kill as a soldier in a wartime situation, which is how most of us viewed his killings.

But I think the bigger problem for many of us is that Logan/Wolverine is portrayed as sadistic and seems to have no remorse at the time whatsover, even when he is not under the control of Romulus (e.g. Tule Lake).

As always… this is only my opinion.

I’m sorry but while the rest of you post is very good this statment is provable BS.

Some enemies need to be killed, this is evidenced by people like spider-man who doesnt kill goes through this cycle.

1. Dress up in a high profile persona, attack villians and call them names.
2. Act shocked when they kill you family.
3. Put them in jail.
4. they escape 2 and a half seconds later.
REPEAT THE ABOVE FOR EVER.

Wolverine knows this and that is why he kills hand ninjas and cut Tooths stupid head off.

There was a story in Giant Size Avengers where wolverine saves the day by stabbing and killing a villian who otherwise would have become like Kang and killed the Avengers. (Do you own that one DiG)

And Commusiv, the Wolvie Killing Xorneto isnt a good example as he had just murdered JEAN GREY, lets not open a whole new bag of worms by brining up her in relation to wolvie.

He killed people in publishing-early (hellfire guards)
He killed people in chronology-early (world war one)
He kills people now.

What Way has done is nothing new. He simple shows and expands the horrible bits making his redemption and modern heroics that much more of an effort and achievment for old James Howlett.

“Ace, the reason you will see so many people adding disclaimers to their comments is that discussions about ‘Wolverine: Origins’ nearly created several flame wars here in the past. So those who are not fans of the series have tried to couch their criticism as personal opinion, not fact. And those who do like the series now try to avoid the charge that Origins-haters are closed-minded.”

I couldn’t agree more with these words. In my honest opinion, I don’t think Way is revealing some past but instead he’s creating a new one and therefore disrespecting the character’s chronology. To put DiG’s words otherwise, I think that if Wolverine Origins were introduced in 1974 instead of 2006, I believe that today Wolverine wouldn’t be the popular character he’s now, who knows, maybe Wolverine Files wouldn’t even exist ;).

I’d like to add that the thing that did piss me off (more than Wolverine Origins) was D. Way comments on Marvel Spotlight: Wolverine because while there are WO defenders speculating that Wolverine actions weren’t jis own, D. Way comes to say that Wolverine is a war criminal, leaving me with the feeling that he’s saying “your speculations are wrong, Logan did it by himself”.

That’s how I understood D. Way words. If you people understood otherwise, I’d like to know what you think about it.